Noninvasive imaging of cerebral blood volume in piglets with vascular occupancy MR imaging and inflow vascular space occupancy with dynamic subtraction

Accurate quantitative non-invasive assessments of arterial cerebral blood volume (aCBV) can greatly benefit the study of cerebral vascular health in both humans and in animal models. In recent years, progress has been made in the techniques available to quantify CBV with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Here, we compared a non-invasive technique, measuring inflowing vascular space occupancy with dynamic subtraction (iVASO-ds) with a contrast-based vascular space occupancy measurement in piglets. In addition, we measured how the iVASO-ds derived aCBV changed with piglet development from 4 weeks to 8 weeks. Our results indicate that there is a significant correlation between the non-invasive iVASO-ds derived aCBV and CBV quantified using a gadolinium contrast agent, despite the contrast-based method providing significantly higher estimates of CBV resulting from challenges inherent to using the contrast-based technique. In addition, it was possible to see significant increases in blood volume across 4 weeks to 8 weeks in pig development with the non-invasive technique. Our results suggest that the non-invasive technique, iVASO-ds can assess aCBV in the developing piglet, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and has significant advantages over the contrast-based quantification method.